Need Food Badly

Every once in a while companies breathe new life into Gauntlet. There have been countless iterations (pick your console or handheld), a sequel (the appropriately named Gauntlet II) and a reimagination (Gauntlet Legends and its several sequels). Now the game is getting a reboot for a third time with Gauntlet.

I had a chance to check it out this week at GDC and found it to hew close to the original. Players pick one of four classic heroes — Warrior, Wizard, Valkyrie and Elf — who each have their own strengths and weaknesses and they go dungeon crawling, fighting swarms of enemies and gathering loot. The developer, Arrowhead Game Studios, updates the visuals so there’s dynamic lighting and polygons instead of sprites, but for the most part, it’s a top-down adventure geared toward four-player co-operative play.